Hundreds of women raped, burnt alive in Congo jailbreak amid rebel conflict

|Published 5:30 PM ET, Wednesday 5, 2025|

Hundreds of women inmates in Munzenze prison in Congo’s Goma were reportedly burnt alive after being raped during the chaos after Rwanda-backed rebel groups entered the Congolese city last week, leading to a surge in human rights violation.

Rwanda-backed M23 rebels last week captured regional capital Goma in an anarchic and mineral-rich part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where millions were killed and displaced in wars of 1996-1997 and 1998-2003.

Among the human rights violations the conflict has led to, summary executions and bombing of displacement camps are some, along with reports of gang rapes and other sexual violence, according to the UN rights office (OHCHR).

According to Vivian van de Perre, the deputy head of the UN peacekeeping force based in Goma, several thousand men managed to escape from the prison, but the area for women was set ablaze.

Images that were reportedly taken shortly after the M23 rebels breached into Goma showed plumes of black smoke arising from the prison on the morning of January 27.

UN peacekeepers have been unable to access the prison to investigate the incident further because of restrictions imposed by the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels.

While there are not many details on the incident, the atrocities are said to be the worst of the recent M23-led conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The report said that about 2,000 bodies could still be awaiting burial in Goma as of Tuesday.

“There was a major prison breakout of 4,000 escaped prisoners. A few hundred women were also in that prison. They were all raped, and then they set fire to the women’s wing. They all died afterwards,” the report quoted as saying Van de Perre, who is now in Goma with thousands of UN peacekeeping troops deployed to protect citizens.

The UN Human Rights Council will hold a special meeting to discuss the situation in Goma, a UN statement said on Tuesday.